Unit doses of medication that are prepared in the form of tablets, capsules, caplets, and the like, are generally packaged in bottles which are typically loaded or filled into the bottle through its neck. After being thusly loaded or filled, the bottles are usually closed with a removable cap means so that a patient can access the medication.
Unit doses of medication that are provided in the form of tablets, capsules, caplets, and the like, are often prepared in different geometric forms such as square, rectangular, triangular, trapazoidal, spherical, round, oblong, elliptical, and the like, in order to distinguish one unit dose of medication from a different unit dose of the same medication and to distinguish different medications from one another.
Loading or filling bottles through their necks with such unit doses of medication requires the use of specialized and sophisticated equipment since the medication units are typically individually loaded into the bottles. In many instances, the speed at which an automated packaging line is run must be reduced to insure proper loading of the bottles of these medication units.